The Firmani Villas is a master piece built by my husband. Sure, I helped with the colors here and there, and I listened for hours to his design ideas and followed him to Home Depot … but this house-it is from his heart to us and we love it.

As I watch my husband, who works countless hours to see that the kids are cared for … spoiled even … I am in awe. As my kids grow up, they are beginning to see it too. He rocks!

As a family, we have learned to truly love our time together, especially when we are all in the Villa! This gift from daddy is pretty good!

I did not know what we were building there — I was just a mom with a young family… but my husband knew and the power of that love remains in the house and in our family.

We built that house with love, the power of which continues to this day. Come join us, come hang with the gang and share the love at our place! We hope you laugh, cook, swim, hug and grow within the four walls we call HOME.

Downtown Revitalization … sounds to me like a pipe dream … but not in Vegas! Slowly but surely, Downtown Vegas is becoming quite the cool place. I watched it change and I watched a few things develop, but now! It is such a great place to visit, it is moving up on my list. Especially Container Park! The entire area has building made from containers. Shopping areas and even fabulous places to play: http://downtowncontainerpark.com/play/

We have been busy. Things are moving fast and we need to stay on top of it all!

Photos… blogging … pinterest … google+… webinars… apparently it comes with the territory when you start a big project for the internet. Lots of work you did not expect comes along with it! So we work and work and was it worth it? Well, YES, we are quite pleased with the results.

We have taken this project on as a chance to do something further with our little piece of the Earth! We love finding families to share the house with and to help them have a lovely vacation. For the past few weeks, we shared the house with an amazing family from Texas. They told us on a scale of one to ten … our house was a 14!!! They had such a vacation. 🙂

It makes all this work worth it … another successful trip!!

What are you working for? As you continue with your job, are you asking yourself, how am I helping?

We are so motivated and pleased that we have the chance to bring fun and happiness to a few people in the world!

Friendship is like standing on wet cement. The longer you stay, the harder it’s to leave, and you can never go without leaving your footprints behind. (I read that somewhere and it stuck).

We know what it is like to open your home to strangers. To meet them and hang out with them .. and for us this has been awesome! The experience of sharing our favorite place in the world (the Palazzo) lead us to opening our home in a different way — to a visitor from Italy. We had a lovely young woman stay with us for this past year and now it is time to let her go.

This all makes me feel like I felt when we left the house is Vegas…. the pain and the excitement of a future unknown. Knowing that we can always visit, but it won’t be the same. Maybe that is ok .. but for now, the pain just feels raw. The confusion all too familiar. All we can do is focus on the laughter and the amazing times that were had. Hold on to those during the rough times and focus on being extremely happy we opened our homes and for the footprints now being left.

Summer is here .. do you find yourself sitting at work and dreaming of taking a trip? What would work for you? Crazy Las Vegas? A water adventure… hot days and cool water? Exploring? I am up for them all!!